Wilberforce Stephen Newton was born at Brighton, Victoria on 27 December 1890. His father, Hibbert Henry Newton, was Clerk of the Victorian Parliament and his older brother was the eminent surgeon Sir Alan Newton. His mother, Clare Violet Stephen, came from the notable Stephen family, many members of which attained great prominence in the legal and medical professions. Sir Clive Fitts gave a most interesting account of this family in an address to the Medico-Legal Society of Victoria in 1954.

WS Newton was educated at Haileybury College and the University of Melbourne. After graduating MB BS in 1915, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving with an advanced dressing station in the 19th British Division. On his return to Australia in 1918 he became medical superintendent of Alfred Hospital to which institution he devoted much time throughout his life. He was appointed physician to outpatients in 1923 and inpatients in 1933 and held this position until ill health forced his retirement in 1948. For over twenty years he was a member of the board of management of the Hospital and remained on the board until his death. He was dean of the Hospital’s clinical school for some years and was determined that it should become one of the leading clinical schools in Australia.

In his early years as a physician he frequently gave anaesthetics and was one of the first in Melbourne to demonstrate the advantage of nitrous oxide and oxygen anaesthesia in poor risk patients. He developed a large consulting medical practice with a special interest in diseases of the chest and made a great contribution to the management of tuberculosis in Victoria through his membership of the Consultative Council on Tuberculosis set up by the State Government. He was also concerned with lung cancer, being on the executive of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria. Of latter years he had a very special interest in bronchiectasis, and particularly its conservative management with postural and bronchoscopic drainage. In exploring the role of surgery in management he was instrumental in persuading CJ Officer Brown (later Sir James) to specialise in thoracic surgery, which eventually led to the establishment of the ‘CJ Officer Brown Cardiac Surgery Unit’.

He proceeded MD Melbourne in 1920, was an original member of the Association of Physicians of Australasia and in 1938 was elected a foundation Fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians of which he was a member of council from 1944 to 1955 and a vice-president from 1950 to 1952. His contribution to chest medicine was recognised by his election to Fellowship of the American College of Chest Physicians. In World War II he was appointed consulting physician to the Royal Australian Navy. In 1950 he was honoured by a knighthood in recognition of his services to medicine and the community.

He was a man of high principles and great personal charm, forceful and determined in his views but scrupulously honest. Though at times he was involved in disputes, there was never any rancour, and he remained a loyal and trusted friend even to those from whom he differed widely. Towards the end of his life he became increasingly disabled by angina and emphysema, an illness which he faced with remarkable courage and patience until his death in 1955 at the age of sixty-five.